Another Country
by ferain1832
Summary: "And there's another country I've heard of long ago..." 208 light years away, in the constellation of Draco, lies a planet inhabited by a beautiful, freedom-loving species determined to help mankind. Involving a charming young alien that is capable of being terrible, a self-sacrificing mission and a welcoming group of friends.
1. Chapter 1

_I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above_

_ Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love._

"You will like this position," the ship's captain said. "It seems almost too good to be true."

"What is it?"

"The signal was located in the sub-region of "France". You know the language well, is that not so?"

"I've completed the necessary training," Enjol said. Naturally one could not learn all the languages of the humans, they had so many, yet the Human Aid Corps Training Academy had outlined the most pertinent ones. Out of French, German, Russian and English, he had felt an affinity to French - it sounded most like the language of his own people.

"He is what the humans consider a child," the captain continued, "156 months old, or in their conception, about 13 years. Again, perfect."

"I am almost 10 months younger," he intervened. "Would that not make a difference?"

"None whatsoever. The humans will simply think you look a little young for your age. Best of all, he even looks a lot like you. We will need only a minimal amount of masking."

"Who is he?"

"A child going to what humans call a 'boarding school', in the locality of Paris. We will brief you on that in a moment. They were passing through a forest and carriage was attacked by a particularly dangerous specimen of earthly fauna, a pack of wolves. The coachman fled, leaving the child and his companion to be devoured."

Enjol frowned with confusion. "Why did he flee?"

"You will find," the captain said mysteriously, "that humans are often slaves to a certain emotion called fear."

For at least the last 100 months of his existence, he had dreamed of joining the Human Aid Corps. The stories that the elders of his community told them filled his head with visions of that distant planet, apparently so similar to their own but so painfully different in the important details.

Unlike his own people, the inhabitants of the Earth required nourishment from outside sources, not only collecting water but gathering plants and even slaughtering animals (in which, the books said, their planet was abundant) to keep themselves alive. This led to conflicts, he understood, with each person needing to get enough for himself, and some wanting even more; it led to the unthinkable, the humans murdering each other for the other's property, or forcing them to do their bidding for fear of death or poverty, enslaving one another and judging each human by the quantity of golden disks that each had. Then they had such strange conceptions of the other's worth, considering somehow that one person was allowed to rule the others and another had to fulfill his wishes, simply through some unwritten code that said that it is to be so!

Luckily, not all the inhabitants of the Earth saw things in this manner. In fact, he was told, the vast majority of the people resented such a way of life and dreamed of ridding themselves of the tyrants that ruled them. However, for reasons that he could not quite understand, most of these did nothing to improve their situation, leaving such attempts to a mere handful of their brethren.

It was these people that their nation has unanimously agreed to support, having discovered first the planet itself and then its dreadful condition with the help of the scientific developments over the last three thousand months. The Human Aid Corps, established in the month 19380, pledged to train volunteers in all manner of human arts, sufficient to allow them to be planted into human society and take part in their struggle against injustice. It was decided to maintain secrecy - human civilization was clearly somewhat less advanced than their own (they had not yet discovered telepathy, nor the other array of mental powers that lay at their disposal) and it was impossible to divine what attitude they would take to strangers apparently invading their planet in this manner. Since the Corps's first successful mission in England in the month 19740, the human year 1642, there have been hundreds of volunteers of which Enjol was one.

"Best of all," the captain was saying, "you will almost keep your name. The boy - you should get used to that word - is called Enjolras."

Enjol smiled in anticipation. He had graduated three months ago and the launch of his ship had been several times delayed. At last they arrived on Earth and the last two months they coursed its surface, looking for potential opportunities. One could not simply drop what seemed to the humans a rather young child in the middle of France.

"Is everything ready?"

"Put on your Earth attire, then we go."

Enjolras, as he determined to think of himself from now on, had of course practiced wearing human clothes, yet these ones seemed to be more uncomfortable than normal. A stiff, restraining collar; a shirt made of uncommonly scratchy material; several more layers of thick fabric; finally that ridiculous convention that the humans called a tie which Enjolras still viewed with considerable suspicion; a far cry from the lighter and freer costume of their own.

"Prepare for landing," the captain called out. The mechanician in the engine deck busied himself over the invisibility controls: though they were now in a forested and sparsely populated part of the country, every precaution still needed to be upheld.

Strapping himself into his seat, Enjolras cast his eyes over his resume. He was a thirteen year old boy - he simply must try to think in these human terms - from a town in the south of France called Aix-en-Provence, according to statistics about the same size as his own community at home. He was going to school in Paris, with other boys of his age, to return home only in the summer. There was a father and no mother or siblings - so far so good - and quite a large number of those objects humans called money.

The ship glided smoothly through the trees of the forest, avoiding collision with the tall specimens that may or may not have been called firs. At last, with the tiniest of jolts, it landed right in the middle of a clearing.

The rest of the staff pressed his shoulder as he went past them, with a look of silent farewell. Who knew when he would see them again, or if ever?

With a deep breath, Enjolras stepped out of the ship and onto his very first patch of ground on Earth. It felt much the same as the ground back at home, so did the air he carefully breathed in. The captain led him swiftly through the trees, the branches brushing against their sleeves, until they came out onto a narrow road, only vaguely lit by the stars above.

The road was blocked by a large carriage, turned on its side. One horse, to Enjolras's deep distress, lay dead by the front wheels, blood still slithering from the wounds covering its body. The horses they had on their planet never had to suffer such a death, safe as they were in their sanctuaries…

Yet this was a different world entirely, with its own, more savage rules. Enjolras came nearer, treading carefully around the corpse, only to be greeted with another one, human this time, even more mangled, still clutching a pistol (was that the word?) in his hand.

"Where are the wolves?" he whispered, compelled to lower his voice before the death in front of them.

"Scared off by the ship's signals," the captain said. "Look, this is you."

Following his sign, Enjolras looked into the open carriage and saw the boy. Unlike the others, he hardly seemed dead at all.

"Could we not have saved them?" he asked quietly. "We are, after all, here for their aid."

"We were here too late," the captain simply replied. "Now, get into the carriage. I shall take the body away and we will bury it according to human custom."

"And what do I do?"

"Wait for some human to come. You should be safe from wild animals while we are still in the area. And then…"

"Onwards.

In several minutes more, after a few final words of encouragement, the captain turned back to the ship. Enjolras watched his white shirt become gradually more obscured by the branches, then it disappeared altogether.

With a sigh of resolution, he climbed into the carriage. There were a few more hours until dawn. In the morning some humans will surely come and there his mission would begin.


	2. Chapter 2

_The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,_

_ That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best._

It had taken Enjolras a certain period of time to adjust to human society. The small details of human habits he simply tried to take in his stride, yet there were other, more significant issues that Enjolras began to suspect were at the heart of all the problems on Earth.

On that very first morning on Earth, Enjolras had not been alone for long since the coachman soon returned with a few men from a nearby village. They mourned the dead man, marveled at Enjolras's apparent survival, notified the man who was the real Enjolras's father and now was his own. Eventually, after some weeks, he was once more sent on the journey to Paris, this time without any problems.

After his pleasant first impression of the humans who were nothing but kind to him, Enjolras was bitterly disappointed by the teachers at the school. Instead of the brilliant, passionate, inspiring men he was used to, they were dull, petty, unjust, some of them frankly stupid, the vast majority for some reason determined to make their learning as lifeless and insipid as they could.

Perhaps worse was the fact that when he had mentioned this to the boys in his class, they laughed at him and called him a 'swot' and a 'know-it-all'. Enjolras tried to explain why he thought that education was so paramount and was very surprised to find himself the target of several pairs of fists. He had naturally been trained to defend himself and emerged unscathed, if one didn't count the beating that a teacher had given all five of them afterwards (human teachers were very keen on corporal punishment, he had found).

Enjolras would have wanted to be friendlier with those boys, but their behavior made it very difficult. Many of them simply did not seem to care about anything beyond their simple ball games, methods to source more food, or, as the years went by, the other gender. At the beginning, he blamed his own alien nature for being unable to get closer to the humans, after all he could have no relish for food or see any benefits in consuming alcohol. As for women, though he doubtlessly would have wanted to meet one for the sake of science (his own planet had no such diversity in genders), he saw no reason to give them as much thought and attention as his classmates did. Why, he had wondered many a time, did Delage or Laurent or Favre spend so much time discoursing passionately about "the divine Rosalie", whoever she was, and not, if human deities had to be invoked, the divine Rousseau?

Another problem arose in the matter of his father. There was a man who undoubtedly had a kind heart and a sympathy for the suffering of his fellow humans, yet for some inexplicable reason he was diametrically opposed to any sort of revolutionary movements. Indeed, the topic became a forbidden one after, a few years ago, Enjolras had too fervently defended an unfortunate laborer who had been caught poaching on their estate. To Enjolras it seemed obvious that the man resorted to crime only in order to feed his starving family. Moreover, he had said, why should the estate hold onto such numbers of game merely for the sake of maintaining its property? It only seemed logical to give what one doesn't need to those that did.

The fact that his father did not see things in the same light was made fatally clear on the evening before Enjolras was once more due to return to Paris, this time to start at university.

They were at the dinner table, one of the few places where there was any sort of communication between them. It was also Enjolras's least favourite time of day - how many precious minutes were wasted on the act of feeding, utterly useless and mildly toxic to his people, minutes that could be instead spent in reading more of Rousseau's _Emile _or finishing that tract of Robespierre's…

"Michel," his father suddenly broke the silence, "I want you to promise me something."

"What, father?"

"You are about to strike out on your own," he said, "in other words, to become a man and live independently."

Yes, at last the way was almost clear for Enjolras to finally begin working on that cause which had brought him to this planet. Five years have passed, spent learning more about Earth and its struggles, forming his own judgements and making plans ahead. After five whole years of witnessing the misery of France's poor first hand, not through textbooks, Enjolras was a thousand times more eager to act at last, to bring his plans to fruition. The distance between himself and the people on the streets lessened by the day. He no longer thought himself such a stranger in their midst; he was beginning to feel their pain as acutely as if it was his own, and the thought of waiting for even a day more before he could start helping them was almost intolerable…

"You will be living on your own in Paris," his father was saying, "a city which despite its attractions is dangerous in many ways. You must promise me to be careful."

"Of course."

"Do you understand what I mean?"

"I mustn't get robbed," Enjolras recited, "or be extravagant, or fall into bad company, or gamble, or indulge in drink, or pay little attention to my studies, or take lodgings at an evil household."

His father looked pleased. "Above all, you must choose the right friends," he said. "There are many young men in Paris with whom you would do well not to associate. Stick with the good natured idlers, they are a better alternative to those radicals…"

"Father," Enjolras said, suddenly understanding what his meaning had been all along, "why would I associate with idlers when I could make the acquaintance of serious men who care for the future of their country?"

"Michel, please," his father sighed, his expression as painful as if he had cut himself with the knife in his hand instead of the lamb, "do not start this again. You know perfectly well what I think of all that nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense," Enjolras said, trying hard to keep his voice even, "there is nothing so important as this, and it pains me that you do not see the truth."

His father's eyes flashed with anger. "I forbid you to speak this way to me," he said, "or even mention this topic. Am I asking too much? All I want is for you to study for a few years without meddling in all this awful rubbish, then to come back, marry some charming young lady and have a peaceful life with your family. What are you not pleased about?"

"I don't want to marry any young ladies," Enjolras declared, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks, "or to have children, or to manage this estate all my life. I refuse to bury my head in the sand or to live in plenty while others are suffering. I..."

It may have perhaps been wiser if he had not continued that speech. A little over an hour later, with a single suitcase in tow and three louis in his pocket, Enjolras was sitting in a carriage that was to bring him to Aix, where he could get onto the post chaise in the direction of Paris.

This wasn't the best start to his mission, Enjolras admitted it, but what could he have done? Five years of stagnation in his sheltered _lycée_ had been enough. He yearned for some fresh air at last, finally doing what he was meant to do all along, serving a purpose. He had no time for such frivolities as marriage and children, nor was he prepared to fall back into a rotting pond of ignorance, pomposity and vain self-importance. His father could not understand this simple fact, so much the worse. Enjolras would have to obey the injunction to never appear in the house again. There was no other way, nor could ever be.


	3. Chapter 3

_The love that never falters, the love that pays the price_

_ The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice. _

By the end of the week Enjolras found himself at the the Porte d'Italie, the rural countryside around him slowly turning into the urban Paris he loved best. How little opportunity he has had until now to experience fully those central streets in the Quartier Latin! A daily walk, always from the _lycée _through the smaller alleys between Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue de l'Est which bordered the Jardin Luxembourg, specifically chosen, Enjolras thought, to distance them from the teeming crowds of the _quartier_, had only strengthened his desire to truly immerse himself into the real life of Paris, without shying away from its dirt and repugnance and truth.

Well, that opportunity was before him now, along with a few other inconveniences that human society presented. Having spent the last five years with his every need provided for, Enjolras suddenly realised that he knew rather little of money, how to spend it and on what. On his own planet, now quite distant from his thoughts, he would have been able to access anything he may need without this awful necessity of paying for it. A few words of gratitude to those who helped him and readiness to likewise help all those who needed it was all that was necessary.

Driving through the streets of the Croulebarbe area, the thoughts of where he could find lodging and how much would he be expected to spend on it swiftly left Enjolras's mind. Who cared about such mundanities when here was the living, breathing Paris surrounding him on all sides?

The carriage brought him outside the Hôpital Cochin. Alighting from the carriage, suitcase in hand, Enjolras surveyed the street, noting that rubbish heap in the corner and those two shabby-looking boys loitering around it. A woman walked past, startling Enjolras with the impressive rustling of her skirts. Little though his experience of them had been hitherto, he had already discovered an inexplicable difference between the women and the men - the former showed a strange tendency to stare at him as he walked past. Enjolras had even began to suspect that the women had a superior level of perception to the men and could somehow sense what he really was.

This woman, too, turned her head slightly to look at him as she rustled past, a strange sort of smile appearing on her lips when their eyes met. Thoroughly alarmed, Enjolras turned away sharply. What could that mean? The Corps had never warned him of any such dangers. He'd better avoid them until he could be sure that there was no danger in being in their company. Even then, though the reason for their marked attention could be completely benign, Enjolras did not precisely appreciate -

Suddenly, as he was crossing the road, deep in thought over this problem, there was a rapid thundering of wheels and horses' hooves right by his ear, a high pitched shout, and before Enjolras could react, something flew right into him, throwing him onto the pavement with an abrupt jolt of pain.

For a minute, everything acquired a strange dark hue. Enjolras tried to sit up, ignoring the fact that his right arm hurt more than was immediately discardable and there was something slithering down his cheek.

To his surprise, another arm slid round his shoulder, propping him up. His vision slowly cleared and in a moment or two he could see three things: pears and plums scattered on the cobbles, a large cart towering over him, and an anxious-looking man kneeling beside him.

"Can you hear me, _monsieur_?" he asked, sweeping a sharp glance over his body.

"Yes," Enjolras said, still a little stunned from his fall. "I'm fine."

"I am a doctor," the man said, partly to him, partly to the small crowd that had gathered around them. "Do you think you can stand up, _monsieur_? Let me give you a hand."

Enjolras stood up, the steady hand still around his shoulders. Looking down himself, he saw several bloodstains on the front of his waistcoat and a rather large dark circle on his right sleeve.

"You'll need a few bandages," the man said, "yet I am glad to find you relatively unscathed. A lucky escape."

At those last words, his lips curled up in a faint smile.

The driver of the cart came round, a strange mixture of anxiety and irritation on his bearded face.

"Good to hear it, _monsieur_," he said, "though if I may, you ought to be a little more careful, throwing yourself under honest people's carts."

"I'm sorry," Enjolras said, admonishing himself for this unfavourable start. "The fault is entirely mine."

"Nevertheless," the other man came to his aid, "it seems that this gentleman took most of the damage on himself as well as the blame. _Monsieur_," he turned to Enjolras, "would you care to come with me? My apartment is in the next street and I will be able to tend to your wounds."

If it had been anyone else, Enjolras would have declined, saying that these wounds did not merit that name. Yet there was something in the man's soft brown eyes and the intelligent crease on his forehead which made Enjolras follow him down the street and left into the Rue des Charbonniers-Saint-Marcel.

"My name is Combeferre," the man said after a few moments of silence.

"And mine is Enjolras."

Monsieur Combeferre's apartment was on the third floor of a perfectly ordinary Parisian building, with the most incredible interior that Enjolras has ever seen. Indeed, it reminded him of the houses of his own planet. There were books everywhere they could possibly be placed: behind glass panes in solid mahogany cabinets, on a large desk by the window, on a smaller round table on the opposite side of the room, on the windowsill, even stacked neatly on the floor. Then, the walls were covered with all manner of things: diagrams of various parts of anatomy, often not human; charts of the night sky; prints of famous paintings; hand-drawn pictures of moths; a few portraits of stern-looking men with glasses; a list of Chinese hieroglyphics; and, to Enjolras's delight, just by the desk, a map of revolutionary France and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man.

As he walked in, careful not to tread on the stack of medical journals in his way, Enjolras became aware of a butterfly flitting past him towards the high ceiling.

"Please sit down," Combeferre said, indicating a relatively free _chaise longue_. "If you could take off your jacket?"

The way he rolled up his sleeve and inspected the wound pleased Enjolras even more - it was calm, collected, swift, impersonal enough to cause no alarm in the patient yet giving a distinct impression of sympathetic concern.

"I gather you have just arrived in Paris?" he said, glancing at the suitcase which now stood in the corner of the room.

"Yes," Enjolras said. "I was meant to be admitted to the faculty of law in a month's time. I set out from Aix a week ago."

"Indeed? And where are you headed now?"

"I…" Therein lay the problem. "I don't entirely know."

Combeferre's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Why is that?"

"Well…" Really, if it was any ordinary stranger, Enjolras would never have talked to him so freely. "I didn't precisely leave home on the best terms."

Strangely enough, Combeferre seemed to understand what was meant by the vague phrasing.

"How did that come about?" he asked gently.

"I had some serious disagreements with my father," Enjolras said after a few moments of silence. "Disagreements which I could not overlook, since they are to do with something fundamental to my existence."

"A disagreement of a… political nature?" And his eyes wandered slowly to the Declaration on the wall.

"Yes."

"I am sorry for that."

The tone with which he said that, sympathetic yet approving, made it even more unnecessary for Enjolras to inquire whether this man was a patriot.

Combeferre had finished dressing the wound and was now washing his hands in the basin he had brought in earlier.

"Do you have much money?" he suddenly asked.

"About two louis."

"And no expectation of anything else?"

"None."

There was a momentary silence in which Enjolras thought it was probably time to go. He took a final glance around the spectacular room, repressed a sigh as he noticed a volume of Portalis's _Observations sur Emile_ (what a painful portion of his books he had had to leave in Aix!), and with some reluctance rose from the _chaise longue_.

"Thank you for -"

"Wait," Combeferre interrupted him. He walked over to the window, slowly drew the curtain as if in some deliberation, then turned back to face Enjolras. "It is getting dark," he said. "You said you have no plans and I don't suppose you know much of Paris. Sleep here for the night. I'd feel very ill at ease if I let you wander off through the streets now."

Taken aback, Enjolras did not quite know what to reply. He had met him half an hour ago at most. Could he, really…? Yet Enjolras could not deny that it would be lifesaving, not to mention that there were many things he would have wanted to ask this man who made him feel almost as if he was in the company of his own people again.

"If…you wouldn't mind?"

He was met with a reassuring smile.

The one night was prolonged to another, then a week, then a month, and culminated with Combeferre offering him to take on half of the rent in exchange for that _chaise longue _and any part of the apartment he might have need of. Sometimes, Enjolras stopped and wondered how it could be that he, who had lived in relative solitude these five years, who had accustomed himself to aloofness and distance, could suddenly have formed such a bond with this human he had met by the merest accident. Yet Enjolras stayed, and as the weeks and months went by, he slowly realised how lucky the meeting had been.

Combeferre had lent him the inscription fee to start at the law faculty. He had advised him to give lessons, since this was what students in adversity apparently did, and had even found several families among his acquaintances who had sons studying for the _baccalauréat. _Not only did he grant him access to his books, he seemed delighted to do so. He even took personal interest in Enjolras's health and began to softly insist that he took regular meals and slept for more than five hours a night. The former did him more harm than good, yet Enjolras was still grateful for this attention.

Most importantly, Combeferre was everything he had wished for when, years ago, he approached the boys in his class with burning questions of freedom, equality and the importance of the state. Combeferre listened, and cared, and had opinions. He could not talk about the traitor Buonaparté without a livid tremor in his voice and a bitingly sarcastic remark. He loved his country and its people, wanted to elevate and educate each man, woman and child, dreamed incessantly of progress, in short, was a kindred spirit.

Slowly but surely, a group of other like-minded young men had began to gather around them. Launching himself into the student society of Paris, Enjolras started to see that there were plenty of people that shared their view and would support the cause. After a year, he had met with such men that he knew he could trust in the struggle to come. Courfeyrac, with his enthusiastic flair and inspiriting laugh; Joly's methodic approach and persevering good humour; Bossuet, a man with a smile and an epigram for any occasion; Bahorel, always ready for a fight, physical or verbal he cared not; Prouvaire, pensive, retiring, full of fervent passion; finally the latest among them, Feuilly, who in the very fact of his being was a symbol of all that they fought for and wanted from mankind.

There was only one man who had caused him some consternation. Grantaire had somehow made his way among them without Enjolras ever quite noticing when he had first appeared. The man was a riddle to him, a mystery, a problem that had Enjolras considering it at very inappropriate times of day and night. How could he say that he did not believe in anything, that the words _liberty _and _motherland _meant nothing to him? How could he sit there in the Musain, day after day, without any purpose or future, simply washing his life away with that awful wine? It was contrary to every instinct Enjolras has ever had. Why did an educated, obviously intelligent and moreover kind-hearted man, a man, in sum, essentially good, allow himself to be thus corrupted? It was a disgrace to their cause, a shame and a waste. From time to time, Enjolras decided that he was going to tolerate his presence no longer, that he would tell him to stop meddling in their affairs once and for all, to find a different haunt for his iniquities, to not dishonour their plight with his drunkenness.

Yet every time Enjolras resolved on this undoubtedly utilitarian move, something stopped him from carrying it out. For some reason that he could not quite justify to himself, he was unwilling to go that far. Perhaps it was that after his righteous anger at Grantaire's indolence, the softer side of his heart prevailed. The meek, almost tender glance that answered Enjolras's admonishments both irritated and puzzled him. He pitied him, he supposed, for the wretchedness of his wasted life. What's more, he never quite lost hope that one day, somehow, Grantaire would change his ways.

At times Grantaire's continuing hedonism felt almost as a personal failure; and it had never been in Enjolras's nature to let failures remain unrectified.


	4. Chapter 4

_I heard my country calling, away across the sea,_

_Across the waste of waters she calls and calls to me._

Combeferre checked his pocket watch; a quarter past three. It was unlike Enjolras to be late, he thought. In all the three years that he had known him, his friend was as punctual as the guillotine. Much as Combeferre himself loved precision it sometimes went a little too far. Often enough, for the sake of some mission, they had to rise early (which in Enjolras's understanding translated to _before dawn_) and at five o'clock exactly he was woken up with a firm nudge and an amiable smile, which, Combeferre granted, was sufficient compensation for the lack of sunlight outside.

As he was thus ruminating on Enjolras's eccentricities, the man's footsteps sounded outside the door. Combeferre had given him a copy of the key from the outset, those three years ago. Sometimes, though, it seemed as if he had known Enjolras for a lifetime. He certainly could no longer imagine his apartment without the presence of that unique being who had become dearer to him than a brother.

"You took your time," he said, turning to face Enjolras as he entered. For some reason, he was breathing far more heavily than normal. "Is everything well?"

Enjolras just nodded, sitting down at the dining table without a word.

"You didn't get into trouble, did you?' The _gendarmerie _was keeping a closer watch on students than was usual, a rumour having spread of possible unrest.

"No."

Combeferre stood up, now thoroughly worried by his friend's tightly pursed lips and flushed cheeks. "What is it?"

"It's nothing," Enjolras hastened to say. "I suppose I'm feeling a little ill."

Combeferre had already encountered the fact that if Enjolras admitted to feeling ill, it meant that he was on the verge of collapse.

"Describe your symptoms," he commanded, swiftly getting up from his chair. "What precisely are you feeling?

"Well," Enjolras said reluctantly, "my chest hurts a bit."

Combeferre had suspected that Enjolras had heart problems for a while. Once, when he had on occasion listened to his heart rate, partly to test Laennec's new model of the stethoscope, partly because Enjolras had been looking pale, he had discovered a strangely irregular and slow heartbeat. He ought to have followed it up, Combeferre now berated himself, instead of listening to Enjolras's assurances that he was healthier than future French society purified of aristocratic filth.

"Go lie down immediately," Combeferre ordered, diagnoses and treatments already flying through his brain. "We'll have to forgo the meeting tonight, instead a firm regimen of bleeding and most likely digitalis, or perhaps..."

Enjolras was looking at him with a strange knowing expression. "It won't help, you know," he said quietly. "I don't know about the digitalis but the bleeding won't help at all."

Combeferre raised his eyebrow in uneasy amusement. "I assure you I know better what would help you right now."

"Combeferre," he repeated, with the same quiet, sombre tone, "there's something I ought to tell you."

"What would that be?"

Instead of answering, Enjolras pulled him a chair. "Sit down yourself and promise to believe me."

"I always believe you," Combeferre said, now thoroughly perplexed. "What is it?"

"I… didn't ever want to tell you this, but I have no choice now."

"Well?"

There was a tense silence, its seconds punctuated by the woodpecker who had taken over the lime tree outside their window.

"What would you have said," Enjolras finally spoke, "if I told you that there are planets outside the Solar System?"

"I'd have said," Combeferre replied, turning to look at his chart of the stars, "that this is a fascinating possibility that has not yet been explored by science. We are only beginning to truly discover the contents of the Solar System and I am sure that Vesta is not the last we have seen of it. Yet we lack the technology to look further beyond."

"That is certainly true," Enjolras nodded, "humans do lack it, but what if somebody else did not?"

"What on earth do you mean?"

Enjolras smiled mysteriously. "Imagine that humans are not the only sentient creatures in the universe. What if there other such species, similar to yours, on other planets, in other galaxies, and rather more technologically advanced?"

"That would be an incredible hypothesis," Combeferre said, remembering the delight with which he had read the theories of Bruno, Hershel and Kant. "Yet we cannot possibly…"

An impossible thought flickered in his mind.

"Wait a moment," he said slowly, looking up at Enjolras, "why did you say _yours_?"

It was impossible, utterly ludicrous. Yet, when he looked into his friend's eyes, quite used by now to gauging what he was thinking by their expression, he was met with a look that did nothing to cast away the laughable doubt building up in his mind…

"No," he said at last, and those eyes and smile replied _yes_.

"No," Combeferre repeated, actually pinching himself to awaken himself from this bizarre dream. "It's ridiculous to even suggest it."

"Is it?" Enjolras said at last. "Was it not you who didn't deny the existence of ghosts and miracles? Why then deny the existence of extraterrestrial life?"

"It is one thing to not deny its existence," Combeferre said slowly, "it is quite another to seriously accept it. Especially if…"

"If it is sitting in your chair, likes your books and has been living in your apartment for three years?"

"Yes," Combeferre nodded. "Yes, precisely."

Enjolras had never been known for his sense of humour, Combeferre thought. He undoubtedly possessed a certain amount of it, yet an elaborate prank such as this would be more in Courfeyrac's style. His friend was usually nothing but earnest.

"You promised to believe me," Enjolras reminded him.

"When you said that," Combeferre drew out, "I did not quite think you'd be asking me to believe that you are from a different planet."

It sounded simultaneously more and less ridiculous now that he had said it out loud. On the one hand, what rubbish that was! On the other…had he ever met anyone remotely like Enjolras? Had he not often wondered, figuratively of course, what planet Enjolras had grown up on?

"Well, then," he said with resignation, "be so kind and tell me what's this place you purport to come from?"

"It is in the constellation of Draco," Enjolras said with a relieved smile, swiftly coming over to the stellar map. "Right there," - he pointed - "though you haven't recorded the star we orbit."

"What is it called?"

Without batting an eyelid, Enjolras spoke a few words that sounded like the closest approximation of angels singing. "It is vaguely translated as _light_," he said, "and the name of our planet refers to a concept that is similar to _liberty_."

It was impossible not to believe him now. A thousand questions formed in his brain quicker than he could put them into words. "What is it like? Is the flora and fauna similar? Do you differ much from humans? And how did you come to find Earth?"

"Well," Enjolras said seriously, "there are many more plants than there are animals, because the conditions of our planet is more favourable to the former. It is generally far less populated than Earth, too."

"Why is that?"

"We don't live very long compared to humans, and we do not have as many offsprings," he said. "We do not have a female gender and our birth and death is probably best compared to stars. Humans sustain themselves through food and drink, while we have a chemical core which powers us at a far quicker pace. We grow up early, stay young for a long time and die perhaps three times earlier than humans."

This talk of death cut short Combeferre's fascinated stream of questions. "You are ill," he stated. "I thought you had some form of heart disease, yet you seem to be saying that this cannot apply to you. Have you any idea what is causing it?"

"I think I do," Enjolras said. "We do not eat or drink, indeed large quantities of food is harmful to us, especially that of animal provenance."

With horror, Combeferre remembered all those occasions when he had made Enjolras eat. "Why?"

"We don't have a digestive system," Enjolras said, sparking another bout of questions in Combeferre's mind. "It is very hard to get rid of this foreign matter, it puts excessive strain on the core. I have been trying to avoid eating all these years but it is harder than I thought."

"I am so sorry," Combeferre whispered. "I didn't know…"

Coming back to the table, he felt Enjolras rapidly press his shoulder. "It isn't your fault," he said sympathetically. "Yet I do need your help now."

An action plan was already forming in Combeferre's brain. "Go lie down anyway. It certainly will not harm you," he insisted, meeting Enjolras's protesting glance. "Lie down and as you do so, tell me in more detail about your anatomy and anything to do with it."


	5. Chapter 5

_And there's another country I've heard of long ago,_

_Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know._

"Are we all here?"

"All but Courfeyrac."

Enjolras frowned with impatience. They had a lot to discuss and time was pressing. His purpose in coming to Earth was close to being fulfilled. France was close to rectifying the mistake of allowing the Bourbon tyrants to return to the throne. The public at large has at last seen through the lies and the false promises of the ministers and who could tell, perhaps 1830 would join those other glorious dates in French history, like 1789 or 1792, a herald of freedom?

Enjolras and his lieutenants have been doing all that lay in their power to ensure that this dream would become reality. Crowds had been rallied, leaflets distributed, speeches made, the tyrant's own self-damning proclamations benefited from, networks built up, new recruits found. Their fate was now in the hands of the people, the great multitude, that bizarre entity that was equally liable to overthrow dynasties with a flick of the finger or to be trampled under military boots, to condemn their enslavers or to side with them. Enjolras knew that he was treading on a knife's edge. The other side was better armed, more disciplined than they were. It had the advantage of legitimacy, that chameleon-like aura of truth and authority that allowed a government to commit any number of atrocities with impunity. Then, humans had such strange instability of mind. Enjolras had no doubt that one of these days the Parisians would rise against their oppressors and sweep away the filthy mire of the last few decades, yet who knew when that time would be today or in three years' time?

Humans, Enjolras had found, could easily be demoralised, scared away from a noble cause by a fear for their own life, or for their family; tempted by the relative stability of their lives, reluctant to thrown away what they have for an uncertain potential of a better world. Such fears were alien to Enjolras, yet after these years on Earth he had begun to understand them. After all, it was a lot to ask from those young labourers with half a dozen children, a wife and elderly parents to disregard their prospects and throw in the fates of all these helpless beings together with their own. Death for one meant death for the rest, Enjolras understood that, and did not press anyone to join the cause. Yet they could not fight without an army, nor did they need to. Enjolras was pleased to have his faith in humankind confirmed by his peers, ordinary students at the Schools, apparently normal young men of the bourgeoisie that nevertheless had a good heart and a courageous spirit. His six lieutenants were those he felt he could trust most, yet there were scores of others who were just as willing to forgo the comforts of home and the pleasures of the ballroom for a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of revolutionary dawn.

Enjolras was happy. Things were going as he planned them, the scattered gunpowder was slowly taking flame. If only he could be rid of _that_ inconvenience…

A sudden flash of pain in his chest confirmed his thoughts. Combeferre had laboured long hours over the question of his health and had come up with several solutions, all of which Enjolras quietly pretended had been successful. The problem was that he did not tell Combeferre the whole truth. That mundane obstacle of human food was only a minor side issue compared to the inescapable fact that he was beginning to burn out. His faculties were as fresh and keen as ever and he had thanked the universe many times for sparing his people from the ruinous effect of human old age. Yet he could not bypass the fact that he was almost 22 years old, 262 months, and who knew how many more he had left?

With an impatient shake of the head, Enjolras dismissed such thoughts from his mind. There was no point dwelling on his mortality. All that there was to be done he would do, in whatever time he had left.

The door to the back room slammed open and Courfeyrac appeared in its frame, dishevelled and out of breath.

"You are late," Enjolras noted, with a motion of the hand silencing the dissonant chorus of voices filling the room. "It is a habit that a revolutionary cannot afford."

"_Tarde venientibus ossa_," Grantaire's hoarse voice commented from behind.

"A thousand apologies," Courfeyrac exclaimed, making his way to the empty chair by Enjolras. "I was frightfully delayed, and no, my dear Bahorel, not by what you think."

"What then," Bahorel laughed, "will you tell this noble congregation that you have been spending the morning among the hoary heads of our elders, otherwise known as lecturers?"

"_Now that_ is a habit a revolutionary certainly cannot afford," Courfeyrac retorted. "What, to waste your days asleep on the disagreeable wooden benches, in the company of someone asleep behind the disagreeable wooden lectern, when there is ammunition to collect and troops to be rallied?"

"Joly had mentioned once that sitting in one of those lecture halls for a prolonged amount of time is liable to introduce scoliosis into your back," Bossuet said gravely. "I certainly do not want to add a hunched back to the list of my misfortunes and hence from that day forth I steer clear of all such dangerous environments."

"Speaking of your misfortunes," Prouvaire interjected, "I have been thinking of penning a Romantic poem with you as its hero, in the noblest style of Byron's _Don Juan_, at least 17 cantos of the epic form."

"Write all you will," Bossuet laughed, "so long as you include for me a charming Haidée and spend three cantos at the least describing our amorous disports."

"I will do my best," Prouvaire said seriously, "yet the poem is meant to be mainly tragic, you know. Could you not mourn the loss of your beloved instead, perished through some unhappy mischance?"

The clattering of Courfeyrac's chair muffled Bossuet's response. "Incidentally, Enjolras," he said, leaning towards him, "ammunition is precisely what has delayed me. I was in a long conversation with a friend of mine, who is a former National Guardsman. He had confirmed what you had suspected, that when the Guard was disbanded three years ago, there was no organised disarming."

"So the weapons are still in the arms of the former Guards?"

"Many of them are. What is more, this friend of mine and bunch of his former comrades have pooled their resources, so to speak."

"And could we count on this friend of yours?" Combeferre inquired quietly.

"I have no doubt of it."

"Better than we could count on some of the people you have befriended?"

"Who on earth do you mean?" Courfeyrac exclaimed, raising an offended eyebrow.

"The Bonapartist Pontmercy, for one."

Enjolras sighed at the memory. "He is young and misguided, yet his heart is good."

"Is it not perhaps worse," Feuilly said, silent up to this point, "to see well-meaning fervour so misdirected, than a lack of it?"

"I disagree," Enjolras said quietly, "it is better to care about something than about nothing. I prefer the warm hearts of the Vendée royalists to the cold apathy of the Parisian absinthe drinkers."

He could hear Grantaire muttering something behind him and pretended that he did not. Yet he really would prefer Pontmercy, despite his stultifying adoration of Buonaparte and arrogant frigidity of youth, to this exasperating scepticism and mockery of all that was about to bring some good to the Earth at last. Did Grantaire not also have a good heart? Enjolras could not deny that, after observing him with the rest of the Amis. Why then did he so obstinately maintain his lack of belief in that which was pure and good?

"Let us continue," he announced. He had more important issues to deal with than the problem of Grantaire. "Joly, where did you put the crate I entrusted you with?"

"The safest place I could think of," Joly said with a wink at Bossuet. "Into Musichetta's wardrobe."

Enjolras frowned with displeasure. "Could you not have found a better option than to entrust this woman with such secrets?"

"Oh, she won't let it slip," Joly protested, "she is the trustworthiest woman in France, I promise you."

"_Mon cher_," Courfeyrac said with a pacifying pat on his arm, "Mademoiselle Colombini's wardrobe is more secure than a thousand locks. Who in their right mind would decide to examine a poor innocent lady's dresses and hats?"

"Is that, then, what you did with your own crate?"

"Impossible," Bahorel smirked, "it would have to be moved from one week to the next."

"Vicious slander," Courfeyrac sighed. "It is in my own apartment, buried in my pile of washing."

"Well, then," Enjolras continued, "we need to be on the move. You have done very well these few weeks, let us not allow the upsurging wave to drop. Combeferre, you will have your little chat with the liberal deputies. Courfeyrac, do your best to secure the link with your friend and his comrades. Bahorel, Feuilly, take a walk along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine and see what comes your way. Prouvaire, see if any good will come from that Bohemian group you met the other day. Joly, consolidate the medical students. Bossuet, tour the taverns of the Rive Gauche, as many as you can manage."

"Gladly," Bossuet declared. "Nothing would give me more pleasure."

"Oh, I am sure it wouldn't," Courfeyrac winked. "A very pleasant little mission on the communal budget."

"The communal budget is very scant for such missions," Bossuet retorted, "not enough to make it pleasant in any way, apart from, you know, the satisfaction of contributing to the revolutionary goal."

"And what about you?" Combeferre inquired.

"I will do as I said earlier," Enjolras said, "and meet Cavaignac in an hour. The more connections we have, the better, and his influence is rather substantial."

He distributed the handful of coins to those who needed it (the communal money was in fact his own, what else would he have spent it on?) and after a few more words the group dispersed, leaving Enjolras alone in the back room.

He had another half an hour before he should start for his meeting, just enough time to think over that speech he planned for -

A slightly hoarse voice broke through his thoughts.

"What about me?"

Enjolras turned around and saw Grantaire still sitting at his usual corner.

"What about you?"

"I could go with Bossuet round the taverns too," he said, with an uneasy laugh, "couldn't I?"

"Oh, leave it," Enjolras said with an impatient shrug. "I know precisely how you would go around those taverns. The Barrière du Maine showed me all that."

He stepped towards the door. There was enough space to think outside.

The chair grated as Grantaire stumbled after him.

"You never know," he called out. "Perhaps this time I will pull myself together. I can talk to these people no worse than Bossuet. Maybe I won't ply them with revolutionary facts, but that isn't what you told him to do-"

"Don't waste my time," Enjolras cut him off. "I have little enough of it as it is."

"Why is that?"

The question sounded a little strange. "You know why."

"Do _they_ want you to return?"

Enjolras turned sharply back around. For once, Grantaire's face was serious.

"I know," he said simply. "I overheard you talking to Combeferre about it one night. You thought the place was empty. You were right, it was only me, and I was drunk, half asleep on the table. You talked for a while and I thought I was hallucinating. Who knows, perhaps I was. Yet you can still trust me, either way, you know. It's been a while and I've told nobody. Sometimes you _can _trust me."

Enjolras silently told himself off for being so careless. Combeferre had been intensely curious, was so still, wanting to know everything about his home planet from their language, to their history, to whether or not they had moths. It must have been one of those conversations.

"Why would you assume it was true?" he said at last.

"It was you who said it," Grantaire shrugged. "You always tell the truth. You would not have reason to make that up. Couldn't you tell me, then, what are you doing here?"

Enjolras considered him for a while. "Helping."

"Why though?"

"Why does anyone help anyone?"

"You said you were from some distant star in the sky," Grantaire declared. "Why in the world would you help _us_? Do Parisians know or care about what some poor wretch in Sudan is doing with his life? Would they go out and help him regain his independence from some evil sultan?"

"Perhaps they would not," Enjolras conceded, "yet that does not mean that they should not."

"And what if they kill you," he insisted, "today, tomorrow, whenever it is your barricade is meant to rise?"

"Then they will kill me," Enjolras said. "It is as simple as that."

"Why would you die for something that does not concern you in the least?"

"Some of you believe in a divine being that came to the Earth and died there to requite your sins. Why can you believe that, and not believe that our nation is capable of risking death to help you?"

"I personally always had trouble believing in that divine being," Grantaire mumbled. "Mothers die for their children, this may happen, lovers throw themselves before the bullet, perhaps, yet do _you _really care this much for the rights of people that might kill your and trample your body into the mud and spit on your grave when you are dead?"

"I am not looking for gratitude," Enjolras said. "I am here to take part in that which is already forming without me and will continue to do so. I have seen my own planet, peaceful and equal, and it breaks my heart to think that on Earth, people live and die slaves."

The murky lighting of the back room was just enough for Enjolras to notice Grantaire's eyes glisten strangely.

"And are you all like that?"

"Everyone I have ever met."

"Couldn't you take me there?" Grantaire whispered, his suddenly wistful voice barely audible over the voices in the front of the café.

Enjolras made an impatient gesture. "Why would you ever want to go there? To mock us all to our faces?"

"I'm not quite so bad as you think," Grantaire said with a rueful smile that suddenly turned serious. "All those other people, all those Robespierres and Saint-Justs, they weren't like you, none of them. They were nothing but ordinary men with ordinary needs and desires like me or anyone on the street. You aren't ordinary. You do not spout doctrine in between gulps of coffee. It must have been your people that appeared to the prophets as angels. And I would follow you, after all, though you would never believe that."

"How could I believe that," Enjolras demanded, "when I have given you chances, not one and not two, and time after time you fail me?"

Grantaire sat, or sank, back down onto the chair, his eyes sad yet tender despite Enjolras's own unforgiving gaze.

"I did try," he said eventually. "Perhaps one day I will succeed."

"When will that be?"

Reaching out for the bottle already, Grantaire looked up once more.

"You will see."

Without further words, Enjolras turned to the door. Time was running out.


	6. Chapter 6

_We may not count her armies, we may not see her king,_

_ Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering._

Enjolras was optimistic enough to not consider the Trois Glorieuses a total failure. The Bourbons were finished with, perhaps forever. The people had shown the monarchy and its adherents that times have changed, that outrageous acts tyranny would not be borne, that the public took direct interest in the workings of the government and would revenge wrongdoing. On the other hand, what a paltry exchange they have made, sealed with so much blood, from one autocrat to the next! What concerned him was that so many saw in this a cause to rejoice. Could they not see what a trap they were walking into? Did they not feel as outraged as he was that, at the cost of so many people's lives, they still had a king, a more liberal king but a king nonetheless? Could it be that they had taken a few trifling promises of freedom for a true and honest revolution?

Yet Enjolras was not in the habit of being disheartened over obstacles, minor or major. Let the people rest a little from their revolutionary fervour, let them return to their strength and remember their desire for liberty. Enjolras was willing to wait as long as his own life would hold out. Really, even at the start, he had not hoped to see any major changes, any significant progress in his own time on Earth, yet still he wished to have brought something worthwhile to the people he had vowed to help; to contribute, be that contribution ever so small, to the single great dawn that could be seen on the horizon from their barricades. Yet he must look beyond his own life, beyond this decade and era, he must see that progress is what one labours over in such small steps to create a greater future. Enjolras had understood that long ago.

Now, as the months went by, Enjolras awaited with increasing impatience some clouds on the monarchical sky. Mostly to appease Combeferre, who had insisted that they, as a fair judge, give the newly crowned Louis-Philippe a chance to redeem himself. Enjolras waited, giving up more months that he thought he had left, analysing newspapers and royal proclamations for signs of change.

He found little, too little to count. There was an understandable reaction against the absolutism of Charles X, some words of warning to Spain over its own budding tyrant of the same name, a purge of the Legitimists from the government, a few pale reforms of the electoral base. And still, there were calls to close republican clubs, the old ministers were judged yet the king was persuaded to omit the death penalty (not that Enjolras wanted an execution, but he wanted justice), the cholera reared its head once more, there seemed to be even more people sleeping on the streets, and in February of 1831, there were the same old causes to riot about as there have always been.

"I find it incredible," he said on one spring evening, gazing up into the purpling sky from Combeferre's window, "that a revolution can give birth to a government that seems to not see what you and I notice every day on these streets."

"The government is trying to appease precisely you and me," Combeferre said with a sigh. "They must be alarmed by the significant numbers of middling students on the streets, fighting side by side with the workers. A riot in the slums is one thing, a riot supported by the upcoming bourgeoisie is quite another. They want to appease us."

"Do they not see," Enjolras demanded, "that we are not fighting for ourselves?"

"Some people find it hard to look beyond their own interests."

"And find it impossible that others might not do the same."

Combeferre put aside his book on medical botany and came up to the window. For some minutes they watched the darkening roofs in silence.

"Where are your other countrymen?" Combeferre suddenly asked. "You said there were many of them. Are any in Paris?"

"I do not know," Enjolras admitted. "I hope there are. They could be anywhere though. France is not the only country in need of a revolution."

"Why don't you know?"

"When you enter a mission, you no longer have any contact with your planet," Enjolras began to explain. "The ship that has brought you returns home and that home is too far away to sustain any technological link. Just before I left, scientists were working on a system to allow us to communicate with other agents on Earth. Perhaps they have developed it by now, I do not know. For me, the only way to know another agent is if I meet him."

"Could you recognise him?"

"Not by sight, unless he happens to have not been masked, like me."

Combeferre smiled. "Then are all the inhabitants of your planet beautiful blue-eyed blonds?"

"Well, yes, though I wouldn't call us beautiful, would you?"

"The entire planet would call you beautiful," Combeferre said seriously. "In fact, I am sure that the statues of Greek youths were all initially based on a stray example of your kind, thus cementing your features as the epitome of beauty in Western civilisation."

"That cannot be," Enjolras shrugged. "We first came here in 1642. Either way, it's nonsense."

"Perhaps," Combeferre acceded with an amused smile. "How would you know this person then?"

"I simply would. We communicate mentally almost more often than we speak."

Combeferre's eyes immediately lit up. "How does that work?"

"I don't entirely know," Enjolras admitted. "It is less of a conversation and more of an intuitive feeling of what is being communicated."

In fact, Enjolras had noticed that, to a certain extent, he could practice the same thing with Combeferre. It was never anything approaching the true communication he had with his own people, yet more often than not, a gesture or a look was enough between them, removing the need for words.

In late winter of 1831, new causes for anger were plentiful. They had narrowly escaped arrest when it was decided to take some direct measures against republican societies. The _Société des Amis du Peuple _suffered an injury to their ranks, a dozen key members, Blanqui among them, having been captured and put to trial. Through Enjolras's efforts, his own Amis managed to stay out of sight of the _gendarmes_. It cost them valuable time, however, time that they could have spent encouraging the people to turn their muted anger into action. In January of the new year, two events occupied Enjolras's mind, the trial of Blanqui and the failed assassination of the king. A month later, the same again, another plot, this time by the legitimists.

"It is absurd," Courfeyrac was saying, a flippant gesture accompanying his words on a frosty evening a week later. "Monsieur Louis-Philippe ought to take the hint; he is disliked, and so universally that there is no ground for him to step on. A step to the right, and he enrages the _enragés_, myself included, in the moral sense if not the political, one to the left and the royalists are on him. The only followers the wretch can get are the same kind of respectable pale pear-flavoured blancmanges like himself. His entertainment is too tame for the lovers of Bourbon extravagance, else they would not have acted during his _bal de Tuileries_, yet too expensive for the ragged onlookers, and rightly so, I have always said that kings are too dear for the populace to afford, and less profitable than a palm tree in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine."

Bahorel applauded with a loud whistle. "I admire the first assassin," he declared, "who, when asked his profession, answered, '_émeutier_'. It is my sole ambition in life to be able to answer honestly in the next census: _Bahorel, Pierre; âge 33; émeutier; célibataire; français; patriote._"

"You have missed your chance," Bossuet struck in, "why did you not think of this last year?"

"I would have had five years less experience," Bahorel replied, "and you will agree with me when I say that an _émeutier _of 33 years sounds by far more impressive than that of 27. When one has passed thirty, one begins to give off the impression that one has dedicated one's entire life to one's profession."

"One should also begin to wonder why one was such a fool as to not read Keats when one was of a sufficiently young age to understand him," Prouvaire declared.

"I am not as averse to Keats as you think," Bahorel protested. "Yet I love Byron more, appreciate Heine's latest works and am rather fond of Hugo, though his _Odes et Ballades _are insufferably royalist."

"He is improving," Prouvaire said authoritatively. "His _Dernier jour d'un condamné _was positively a masterpiece, and his_ Notre-Dame de Paris _delightful. I feel that we can expect great things from him."

"_Hernani _was great fun," Bossuet laughed, "do you remember?"

"I remember the fight," Bahorel said with deep pleasure, "and the excellent fashion in which I broke the nose of that insufferable prat who insisted on the merits of lyrical tragedy."

"The insufferable prats take the upper hand in today's society," Courfeyrac said, patting Bahorel on the shoulder. "The royalist would-be assassins flee the country with impunity, the ragged one is given 5 years. So much for the Citizen King; even his enemies are not punished evenly."

"They are rather lucky," Grantaire declared from his corner. "I wouldn't mind going on a lovely little exile in the direction of Greece and Rome. Sun, waves, ancient ruins, alpine flowers, the modern sylphs and dryads everywhere… Yes, I do see now that killing a king is quite the profitable business. Perhaps I should try it one of these days."

"Enough," Enjolras cut him off. "This is no place for such jokes."

Grantaire bowed apologetically. "I would have thought that you of all people must approve.

The people triumphantly asserting its power, passing their judgement on a tyrant, à la Robespierre, à la _sans-culottes, _all that, no?"

"There is a difference between the former and the latter," Enjolras said quietly, "and it is a slight difference that human circumstances necessitate." There were only two people in the room that would fully understand him, and Grantaire was one of them. "It is the difference between a murder and an execution, or in other words a difference between a killing lacking or granted sense and purpose. In another world, a better one,"–and his voice trembled as he remembered the carnage of the barricades and the quiet customs of his own home– "there will be no need or justification for one human being to kill another. There will be no shadows and blurred lines, all will be right or wrong, good or evil, indeed there will be no evil because the reasons for it will have been removed. Yet in a strange paradox, to herald this era we are obliged to kill one another, we must add a tinge of red to the blues and golds of the coming dawn. Still I say to you all, if it is so decreed that without death we cannot come to this paradise, we must then at least be just about it, not skulk in the back alleys and stab a man in the back. If the people condemn the king, then they must condemn him justly, not send assassins in the night."

"In other words," Courfeyrac said with a wild flick of his head, "away with assassins and forward with duels! Let us storm the Bastille and bring out the National Razor if we must, but let us be fair and win glory in combat, physical or verbal as it needs be, not strike a fallen man."

"It would have been best," Combeferre added quietly, "if we could do without this fratricide."

"It would have been," Feuilly suddenly spoke, "yet the gears of progress sometimes need manual moving."

"Indeed," Combeferre granted, "yet one needs but to kick it into action, then its movement will do the work for you."


	7. Chapter 7

_And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,_

_And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace..._

That conversation came to mind a few months later, when the scenes of 1830 were repeating themselves. The efforts of the past year had not been in vain. The people were once again in a frame of mind to take back what was theirs by right of birth, the true and inalienable freedom which they have been so long denied. This time, who knew, perhaps the nail would be driven fully into its place, the chessboard rid of its crowned participants. Enjolras had high hopes for this uprising, small as its origins were, because everyone knew that from quiet springs came great rivers. The death of Lamarque, a man Enjolras admired despite his too conciliatory views, acted on the popular conscience like a swift removal of a bandage from a swollen wound. The streets were filled with angry voices and bare heads, a shot from a Guardsman provoked them into frenzy and all of a sudden, yet as planned, the streets of Paris on this rainy morning of the 5th of June were filled with barricades.

Yet the day grew darker, darker than Enjolras could have imagined it.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The barricade was strong, Enjolras was supervising some last additions to it when, from the sides of the street, by the houses that looked less like houses and more like the faces of cliffs, he heard voices.

"_Messieurs, _what do you want?"

"Open!"

"_Messieurs, _that is impossible."

"Open, I tell you!"

And there was a click of a rifle being cocked.

"No, my dear sir, I -"

And before Enjolras could speak a word, a shot rang out.

The exultant man cast aside his rifle with a shout of triumph.

The grimy walls of the street first paled, then came sharply into focus. A few short steps, and Enjolras was behind the murderer.

"On your knees."

Turning the man roughly by the shoulder, Enjolras looked coldly down at his surprised, uncomprehending face.

"On your knees!"

His pistol in one hand, he reached with his other for his watch.

"You have a minute. Think or pray."

The man trembled on the ground by his feet, unable to meet Enjolras's gaze.

"Mercy," he mumbled, his voice breaking contemptibly, the syllables barely finding their way out of his quivering lips.

And at this plea, the words of his captain came back, from so many years ago. _You will find that humans are slaves to a certain emotion called fear_.

Enjolras turned his eyes away from the trembling wreck; and as the seconds were ticked off one by one he saw only the eyes of his comrades, solemn and sad, and the quiet lanes of his home city, where at each turn was peace…

As he pressed the pistol to his ear, the man's eyes filled with brutish terror.

A second shot sounded. Straightening up, Enjolras cast his steady gaze across the faces of the crowd around him. Pale, shocked, terrified, they looked cautiously back, yet in their eyes there was still that light which authors called humanity.

"Throw that outside."

Three of the men moved in response.

Among the questioning faces he saw the compassionate and sorrowfully admiring figures of Combeferre and Prouvaire.

"Citizens," Enjolras said, moved to a response, "what this man has done was atrocious, and my retribution no less so. He has killed, and I have killed him in response, because we must have our discipline, even to such a level. We are no longer men, we are the priests of the revolution, and our hands must be clean. He had sullied our cause in the eyes of observers and I have judged him as he deserved. In the same manner, I have judged myself, and you will soon see what my sentence will be."

"We will share your fate."

Focusing once more on the faces of the crowd, Enjolras saw Combeferre's lips move in valiant determination.

"Citizens," Enjolras repeated, feeling his heart ache more and more as the dark reality spread before him, "necessity has pushed me to this horrible act, necessity which we shall purge from this world with our blood. There will come a time, citizens, when the human race too will see a world where death and judgement has no place, where all is love and faith and peace. It will come, and it is so that it comes that we die here."

And as he silently gazed upon the pool of blood still on the cobbled pavement, he felt Combeferre's arm come around his shoulders and Prouvaire's soft fingers take his hand.

Night was falling. There was nothing more to be done except to light a fire in the middle of the enclosed courtyard and wait for the assault to begin. The flag was gently fluttering on

the crest of the barricade, the torch beside casting strange red shadows onto the ground below, still wet and mirroring from the earlier rain.

Talking among themselves, the insurgents split into smaller groups, warming their hands in the fire, with an occasional swig from a bottle. Enjolras had ordered to lay the reserves of alcohol aside. There was little need for it now.

"I wonder at you, Bahorel," Courfeyrac was saying. "You make snide remarks about my insistence on keeping my hat firmly in its place, yet was it not you who had declared, only the other day, that a waistcoat was the best indicator of a man's political opinions?"

"Certainly I did," Bahorel replied, "yet in this present conflict, before the altar of the revolution, so to speak, I prefer to take off that symbol of the bourgeoisie and adopt the simple worker's cap that Feuilly so fittingly sports."

"You may see it as a symbol of the bourgeoisie," Courfeyrac retorted, "and I see it as a symbol of a man who knows what he is about. To take it off now, why, it would be akin to throwing up one's hands and saying, _Well, lads, that's me finished!_ No, my dear Bahorel, I will keep my hat on as long as there is breath in my body, or let it be taken off on the point of a bayonet."

Joly, in the corner, was examining his neck in a pocket mirror.

"Why the neck?" Bossuet inquired with a pleasant pat on his shoulder. "Did you not gain conclusive results from observation of your tongue?"

"You see," Joly muttered, straining his neck to see properly, "I have a distinct feeling that my glands are swollen. I would rather not fight the National Guards while suffering from cancer of the lymphs or tonsillitis."

"If it is the latter," Bossuet said cheerfully, "then you can infect them all while you fight them; if it is the former, well, you currently have roughly the same chances of life and death, and as we all know, death is the finest physician."

"Well, if it is cancer then my chances of death are roughly 99 percent right now, if you add the probability of dying from either cause..."

"You know," Prouvaire said, "I could never quite decide how I would rather die. On the one hand, there is something wonderfully romantic about slowly wasting away from consumption or belladonna poisoning. On the other, it is also rather appealing to treat death in a rather cavalier friendly fashion and to meet it with open arms in a battle, is it not?"

"Believe me," Feuilly said quietly, "there is nothing worse than a slow death."

"There is," Courfeyrac declared, "it is a dishonourable, cowardly one, or, for a brave man, a lonely death away from his friends."

"That's what I thought," Prouvaire said, "and I find immense consolation in the fact that if I die here, I will die with you."

Combeferre sitting silently beside him, Enjolras felt once more a reassuring touch. Without a word being spoken, Enjolras knew what he meant. _We will share your fate_.

After all, he thought, it was worth coming to Earth even should he have failed in his mission, just to find himself a part of this extraordinary little group.

By dawn, they no longer had a poet in their midst to comment on its fresh rays and vibrant colours, neither, when a few hours later the cannon was brought out by the National Guard, was Bahorel there to comment on the disappearance of Courfeyrac's hat. Death had started to break up their group in its characteristically efficient way. Yet fate had decreed that they should not be separated for long.

The smoke from the cannon, the flying barricade debris, the screams of determination and pain, had transformed the quiet street into a battleground. Half blinded by the smoke, Enjolras could not distinguish familiar faces in the mass of combatants, yet he took some comfort in that. As before, they were working together for a common goal, a group of friends scattered through the crowds.

They retreated, losing men with every step, and Enjolras did not peer into the faces of the dead to see who they were. It would give him some comfort to think that Combeferre, his loyalest friend, his brother, was still fighting with him, or that Bossuet's luck had not yet run out…

He had not been wounded once, yet his limbs still hurt with a dull, unending pain. Enjolras paid no attention to it. He would not need his strength for much longer.

A dozen men rammed shut the door of the Corinth, only six remained standing to throw those same bottles he had set aside down at the soldiers, then suddenly silence fell and Enjolras found himself alone.

Trying to regain his breath, he stepped back towards the window, looking around the room for another weapon to replace the stump of the carbine in his hand. There were shards of bottles on the floor which could be thrown if need be… Enjolras wondered when he had become so adept at thinking of ways to kill.

All of a sudden, he experienced a sensation that had left him for eleven whole years. Someone was trying to contact him.

"Agent 1821," a voice spoke to him, "do you hear me?"

And with a jolt Enjolras recognised his captain.

"Yes."

"Our ship is nearing your location. I command you to stand down and await removal."

There were noises downstairs that were getting louder by the minute.

"I don't think I can."

"You must try. We will be taking you home for medical help."

"I doubt you could help me."

"You have been away from home for 132 months. Medicine has advanced. You will be in perfect form to go onto another mission if you so wish. You have done well and the Corps wishes to recognise your achievements."

A head appeared in what was once the stairwell. Enjolras seized a table leg and pushed him back down.

"No."

"What do you mean?"

Enjolras had already made his decision. "I will not come."

"This insurrection has failed. Your men are dead down almost to the last one. There is no way for you to turn this around."

He had known that they must all be dead by now yet the confirmation still made him close his eyes for a moment.

"I am the leader of these men. If they die, I die with them."

There was a momentary silence. "You will be of more use if you come with us."

"Perhaps. Then do you want me to flee the battlefield like a coward and break my promise?"

Another silence, longer this time, broken only by determined cries from below.

"Your motherland is grateful, Agent Enjolras, and will remember you as one of its heroes."

Once the soldiers have made their way into the second floor, they found Enjolras standing calmly by the opposite wall. He watched them huddled by the stairwell, still apprehensive though his only weapon had been discarded onto the floor.

"That is their leader," they shouted, "he is the one who killed the artillery captain. Let him stay where he is in that corner. Shoot him!"

Enjolras took a deep breath, yet no shots rang out. Instead, there was a noise of a chair being thrown aside and a table scraping on the wooden floor.

"_Vive la République!_" a hoarse but elevated voice cried. "I am one of them."

It was Grantaire.

"Take us both with one shot," he said. Then, turning to Enjolras, his eyes full of entreating tenderness, "Will you permit it?"

For the first time in weeks, Enjolras smiled.

The ship _Liberia _was approaching its home planet.

The captain had spent the majority of the last week observing the night sky. When one of their people died, their bodies were transformed into tiny stars, visible only to the advanced telescopes of their planet, shining for all eternity as memorials of the people they once were. The captain wished to be the first to discover that which honoured his former agent and friend.

For some reason, he was struggling to find it. Not wishing to give up, he cast the telescope once more around the sky. Then, with a smile of sudden understanding, he leant back in his chair.

There was indeed a new star, a little outside the constellation of Leo, shining roughly nine times brighter than normal and just visible by the naked human eye.

Two hundred human years later, the amount of such stars had radically increased.


End file.
